A Toronto Film Festival documentary, “Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus,” was dangerous to make.

The movie is about the Belarus Free Theatre, a troupe of actors that performs shows critical of their former Soviet government’s still hard-line dictatorship. Their shows must even be performed underground, for fear of censorship and imprisonment. To tell their story, American director Madeleine Sackler had to shoot some scenes via Skype. A cinematographer smuggled in hard drives with other footage to Moscow or Lithuania.

“We considered it worth the risk,” said Sackler of the project, which HBO bought before Toronto and celebrated there with a lunch reception at Paese.